Crystal Lee Sutton, 67, says she never lived on easy street
and wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but none
of that stopped her from making a difference in this world.

Sutton grew up like most in the small North Carolina town
of Roanoke Rapids - her family relied on the textile industry
and in Roanoke Rapids that meant the J.P. Stevens mill,
where pay was poor and conditions were worse.

She worked the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at age 17. By 19,
she had her first child and by 20, she was widowed. Her
second child arrived a year later and her third came four
years down the road.

The whole time she worked at the mill, just trying to make
enough to take care of her family. She even hauled an Avon
bag around the rural community trying to make a few extra
bucks on the side.

Her second husband, "Cookie" Jordan, moved her
up in the world to a "fancy" house, but that only
lasted a few years. He often complained that she was never
home. By that time, she wasn't selling Avon out of that
shoulder bag anymore. It was filled with papers about the
union.

Her story was transformed by Hollywood into the award-winning
film, "Norma Rae." However, the real life events
were different from the film and Sally Field's portrayal
ended after the cameras stopped rolling, but the real "Norma
Rae" faces a new battle now - cancer. In the film,
the union organizer, Eli Zivkovich, was transformed from
the real life 55-year-old former coal miner from West Virginia
into a fast-talking young Jew from New York.

He set up shop in the small town and was looking to organize
the mill workers. Sutton relied on the mill for survival,
but knew she and the other workers deserved better and she
was determined to make that a reality, no matter what that
meant.

"I've always been a take-charge person and if anything
isn't right, I'm going to put my two cents in," Sutton
said. "If I see someone getting hurt, I'm going to
help them."

Sutton became Zivkovich's number-one volunteer, spending
hours going door-to-door promoting the union and going into
work early to discuss organizing with other mill employees.

"When I went in the plant with my union pin, you would
have thought I had the plague and that is when the trouble
started," she said. "It was truly different because
a woman had never done or dared to do such stuff."

According to rules, management had no say what employees
did in their free time, so Sutton had every right to talk
to workers, on their breaks, about unions.

It was also required that employers have union information
posted for workers to read. The mill had posted a flyer
saying the union would be run by blacks, and when Sutton
told Zivkovich, he told her she needed to copy what the
paper said.

When management saw this, they fired her. This is when
she wrote "UNION" on a piece of cardboard and
stood up on a work station in the middle of one of the factory
rooms.

Sound familiar?

"That was why they wanted to make the movie,"
she said of "Norma Rae," the movie based on her
life. "That was the first time a woman took a strong
stand like that."

All the workers joined Sutton by shutting down the machines,
turning the bustling factory silent, even if it only lasted
a few minutes. Sutton was taken to jail; a scene in the
movie she said was the most memorable for her.

Once Zivkovich bailed her out, she went home and woke up
her kids to tell them the news. She knew they would hear
gossip about her and she wanted them to know the actual
story.

That was in 1973. For a few months, she and Zivkovich had
to work from the outside. On August 28, 1974 their hard
work and sacrifice paid off when the workers voted for the
union. However, it took about 10 years for J.P. Stevens
to actually sign a contract with the union.

By then, Sutton was an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing
and Textile Workers Union, giving interviews and leading
a boycott against J.P. Stevens' products. She and "Cookie"
Jordan had separated and she moved to Burlington.

"We were impressed that she was a hardworking mother
of three that was taking this great risk for workers' rights,"
said Joan Shigekawa, who featured Sutton in her 1975 PBS
primetime series, "Woman Alive!"

"She was working across all boundaries."

New York Times author Hank Leiferman told her story in
the 1975 book "Crystal Lee, A Woman of Inheritance."
In 1979, her story was thinly masked in the Hollywood blockbuster.

"Her courage was inspiring to people and I think that
comes out very powerfully in the feature film," Shigekawa
said. "It takes a lot to stand up for your values in
that way and put your job at risk fighting for principals.
She is universally admired - whether you agreed with her
or not. Her personal qualities gave her heart."

She has been married to Lewis Preston Sutton Jr. for 30
years and he works two jobs to take care of her while she
battles Meniginoma - a cancer that is usually slow growing
with benign tumors. Unfortunately, that is not the case
for Sutton.

"I said I've always been different and I wouldn't
have this cancer thing be any other way. I accept it,"
she said. "It has to follow my personality."

She went two months without possible life-saving medications
because her insurance wouldn't cover it, another example
of abusing the working poor, she said.

"How in the world can it take so long to find out
(whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could
be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is
almost like, in a way, committing murder."

She eventually received the medication, but the cancer
is taking a toll on her strong will and solid frame. Her
thin black hair is brittle from the drugs and chemo treatments.
She has had brain surgery twice -once on Jan. 29, 2007,
and again on Jan. 11, 2008.

"I call my cancer a journey and it is interesting
to see where it goes," she said. "It reminds you
to live each day to the best you can. You are so much more
appreciative of tiny things."

Sutton's small brick home chronicles the battles she fought
and the people who have acknowledged her sacrifices. Her
walls and refrigerator are plastered with photos of her
three children, two stepchildren, 11 grandchildren and four
great grandchildren. She hopes they will follow in footprints.

"Stand up for what you believe in, not matter how
hard it makes life for you," she said. "Do not
give up and always say what you believe."

But the cancer is a daily reminder that she is not invincible,
no matter how feisty she is.

"It is not necessary I be remembered as anything,
but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply
cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S.
and the world," she said. "That my family and
children and children like mine will have a fair share and
equality."

She said that the North American Free Trade Agreement and
the proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement sold the
working poor down the river, but still believes the union
can help.

"The jobs are gone so the unions are going to have
to go into Mexico, El Salvador and into all these other
countries. They'll have to talk to all these people that
are working for slave labor and explain what protection
they will have with the union," she said. "We
need to show these companies that moved there for slave
labor, that it is not going to work. We are coming back
strong and there will be jobs to come."